When we looked to the heavens, we saw other worlds. Before we ever set foot on them, we named them after gods of beauty and war. Venus. Mars. Both we imagined as lush worlds like our own, but soon we realized they were poisonous and barren. And that made us afraid. We could not live on those worlds, and despite all our accomplishments, their fates could still become our own.

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Imperial Corvette’s were not designed for interstellar travel, and Manifest Destiny was no exception.

What the Manifest Destiny gained in arms and armor, she lost in delta-V. Even with her fission powered methane rocket engines, a short orbital transfer was the absolute limit of her capability. She is limited to hyper-efficient bi-elliptical trajectories instead of the much more rapid Brachistochrone-like trajectories favored by most modern spacecraft.

Civilian craft made the trip on Light Rider sails and laser light, or volatile and expensive Torch Drives. They eschewed armaments and unnecessary armor for increased cargo and reaction mass storage but were overly reliant on Imperial Infrastructure. And if a Torch drive were damaged during a battle, it could be catastrophic.

Imperial Naval Vessels instead joined with a dedicated drive module to make interstellar and orbital journeys: A state of the art, remotely piloted Torch Engine – fondly referred to by naval crews as a Bull. The Bull was no less vulnerable to damage from enemy ships than a typical civilian torch ship, but it could be removed from the theatre of battle because of its modular nature. After the Bull has delivered the vessel to the theatre, it is remotely piloted out of engagement range.

The Manifest Destiny’s Bull was a spherical vessel, with its equatorial segment dominated by the toroidal fusion reactor used to produce thrust. The rest of the ship was dedicated to its massive tanks of reactor mass: Helium. Two radiator fins dwarfed the Bull’s body, and during the flight, they would glow with the dispersing heat of the fusion engine. And at its webbed tail, powerful electromagnets shaped Helium plasma into a cone of thrust powerful enough to accelerate both vessels.

Mating the Manifest Destiny to the Bull dominated Achilles’ attention. This would be their crew’s final test before the mission was finally underway, and like most of their suicidal plan, any mistakes could spell doom for everyone on board.

At his station, Achilles watched through a camera on one crewman’s Extra-Vehicular Activity suit as the two ships edged closer together millimeter by millimeter. The Manifest Destiny’s engines had to be shut down and then penetrated by a set of magnetic probes that would act as their primary connection to the Bull. Any mistake here and the engines’ bells could be damaged with no way to repair them.

On top of that, his navigator informed him that they had a tight launch window if they wanted to make an orbital capture at the end of their journey.

“Tell it to me again,” Achilles instructed as he switched focus once more. Much of his job now was to oversee and organize and plan. He could do little by breathing over the crews’ collective necks – it was in their hands now. This, however, proved to be a baffling wrench in his assumptions: baffling, because it should have been impossible.

“It’s lined up perfectly,” Star insisted. “If we begin our burn in fifteen hours, seventeen minutes, and a mouthful of seconds, we’ll have an almost perfect Brachistochrone trajectory right to the gates to the Laetus system. At our peak, we’ll pass through some gates with a noticeable time dilation. And we’ll make a trip that should take seven years, in one.”

Achilles craned his head up to look across the control room, where Star was strapped into the seat for the Astrogator’s console. The tentacles along her back hovered and pecked at the controls, hesitant but growing more confident all the time. A complex diagram described the interstellar trajectory on her screen she’d spent the last week calculating: faithful to her word, it was a straight line.

“How is that possible? I’ve never heard of any ship – civilian or military – that’s ever made a trip with twenty-one Anti-Euclidean transfers without any changes to their trajectory,” Achilles protested. However, he wasn’t sure what he was protesting. The simple impossibility of the fortune that had landed upon them, perhaps?

“I’ve read about two, actually,” Star said. “Sir!” she chirped as she remembered the etiquette of her position in the chain of command. Yet another growing pain of such a green crew, they all knew the theory, but even speaking correctly had never been practiced.

“The first was two-hundred and sixteen years ago,” she continued, “at the Ego-Autem-Transitu interstellar race, which started at Portebetuo and ended seventeen Terminals away at Secundus Perieri. The next race is another seventy years from now, when the alignment will happen again,” she explained. “That’s the longest recorded alignment, at least in the public sphere. But we’re going off the map, into newly conquered space. So, who is to say when the last alignment like this was,” she trailed off, eyes distant as her thoughts wandered. “How could he have possibly realized this would happen?”

“He didn’t. We got lucky,” Achilles insisted. “Very lucky.”

“Sure, I mean, these kinds of things are rare enough. But he had ships for years,” Star protested. “He’s had troops for years. He could have left whenever he wanted, but he waited. Why else wait, except for this?” she asked, incredulous.

“He’s not some sort of super-computer,” Achilles insisted again. “He needed the Corvette, so he waited until he could bait one out. That’s all it is.” The General’s growing deification among the crew was already rampant; Achilles would not allow that attitude to persist among his officers, however.

The entire crew already placed the General on a high pedestal. Dangerously high. Achilles dreaded the day that the General finally made a mistake that he couldn’t recover from because, on that day, everything he’d built would fall from that pedestal. And when it did, the General’s entire, miniature empire would shatter like glass. And none of them would survive it if it happened while they were all trapped in this coffin of a ship.

And Achilles didn’t want to imagine failing the General’s trust. Achilles didn’t think his heart could survive such shame.

“But Singer-“ Star began to protest but was cut off by a glare from Achilles.

“I know what she said during that … song,” he hissed. “And I don’t care what those six-legged barbarians have to say about it. Humans can’t predict the future. They’re not invincible. And anyone who says otherwise is going to spend time in the brig with the Manifest Destiny’s Captain.”

That, thankfully, put an end to the conversation. The other officers in the control module made a concerted effort not to meet Achilles’ gaze as he swept it over them. None of them wanted to go anywhere near the fuming Naval Captain they’d taken hostage during their piracy. He was a grim reminder that they weren’t the heroes of freedom that they hoped they were. It was the truth, but none of them wanted to be reminded of that, and the ex-Captain took particular pleasure in doing so loudly and often.

Thankfully, that was as far as the ex-Captain could go. Restrained as he was, suicide would be difficult, especially under the careful gaze of his Viribus guards, who were blissfully unimpressed by his threats. They’d gained some rapport with the Naval Officer when they’d released the previous crew on a pair of inflatable escape pods, who would both be picked up quickly inside the space controlled by the Terminals. That rapport was worth little other than minor compliance when they needed to renew the bio-keys that kept the ship running.

While no ship had ever been boarded in Imperial history, the threat was still considered important enough that most military vessels required constant confirmation that the Captain was present and alive. Vyrăis blood contained a set of cells with short life cycles, a part of their immune system. Whatever the device that verified the Captain’s blood was, it was sensitive enough that it could detect if those cells were alive or dead. Should a pirate attempt to use a dead Captain’s blood to unlock the ship, those cells would soon die out, and the boat would lock itself down.

“One year,” Star mumbled to herself. “What are the chances?”

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“One hundred and eight …” her companion mumbled as he stared at the water over his knees. His voice was all that broke the white noise of the falling water from the ceiling. Golden light reflected off the water over him, and he looked so small swaddled in the silks she’d dressed him in.

His mumblings were becoming more common, but there was little coherence that she could find in them. She was worried the hunger had started to make him delirious, but she couldn’t be sure. She didn’t even know how many weeks they’d gone without food, but if she didn’t do something soon, then they’d both waste away.

Their “camp,” for lack of a better word, was at the waterside near where she’d been born. Now, it sported a set of silks to sleep on and a copper pot – though she hadn’t tried to light a fire under it yet with the broken pieces of the silk-making machines. However, she also hadn’t found anything to cook, so she didn’t see a point in wasting the preciously limited fuel. And there was hardly any point in making a lean-to. The light was always at a perfect golden sunset tone, and the rain only fell over the water – if she could call the water feature rain, she still wasn’t sure.

All there was to do was rest and continue mapping the labyrinthian structure. With charcoal she’d found in the silk room, she had finally begun to sketch out a simple map of the labyrinth across a sheet of silk. The map had grown considerably, and while she’d found many more rooms with evidence of previous inhabitants, she’d yet to find anything else.

Not even bodies, though she’d found evidence of death in this place. The sight of the bloodstains had sent her companion into a crying mess; his muscles were so tense when she led him away, it made her worry his tendons might snap.

“Two thousand and sixteen ringing bells,” he mumbled. “Nine circles of hell.”

“Maybe I should name you Mason,” she grumbled, her own frustration growing at the behest of her growling stomach. “Then you can tell me what all these fucking numbers mean.”

If only he would speak to her. It was clear he’d been born long before her and seen many things. She heard him mumble in his sleep about gangs of strange creatures that lived in rings. Sometimes he mumbled about a forest that never ended. Other times she heard him curse at an enemy she couldn’t place, though mentions of scales and claws painted a ghastly picture.

Goodness, she was so hungry she could hardly concentrate. The drawing spread out before her was no clearer to her than it had been in her mind before she’d started drawing. Maybe she needed to retrace her steps to check her measurements and redraw the map? Then maybe a pattern would reveal itself-

“What would your name be?”

“What did you say?” She whirled in place, shocked at the clarity in her companion’s voice. He stared at her out of the corner of one eye: focused, but only just.

“You said you’d name me Mason. What would your name be?” he asked.

“That is one hell of a question … Mason,” she said. The name felt strange on her tongue after so long without one. But now that she’d given him one, even if only in jest, it was difficult not to use it. His question, though, weighed heavy on her.

How could she just pick a name for herself? If she did, then shouldn’t it mean something? Shouldn’t it be a reflection of who she was? Or maybe who she hoped she could be? But that was yet another question: Who was she? And who did she want to be? Or maybe she was just obsessing over something trivial? Was it really a question that needed so much thought? And if that was the case, what was the point in answering?

Mason continued his stare, apparently impervious to the niggling doubts she faced. And yet, he answered her questions with a single word: “Eabha,” he said. His gaze returned to the falling water, and he began to mumble more numbers under his breath again.

“Ay-va,” she said. Surprisingly, she liked the name. It did nothing to dispel the existential questions that haunted her, but it could be hers nonetheless. And he gave it to her, perhaps with the same impulsive carelessness she’d given his. All the same, the emotion that welled up from her chest was complex in a way she wasn’t ready for – before she knew it, her eyes were moist. “Yeah, I like it,” she said.

“Divisions of seven and three,” Mason stuttered.

“Yeah,” Eabha sighed. Her mood, briefly brightened by his sudden coherency and the strange cathartic process of accepting a name, fell once again as Mason lost that coherency. “Don’t worry, Mason. I’ll figure this out,” she whispered more to herself than to him.

Eabha turned back to her drawings and tried not to let the growling of her stomach distract her.

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Old Bess found work on the Manifest Destiny’s galley to be surprisingly rewarding.

The Cook, a grizzled old Shett who knew far more about cooking than he did about common courtesy, was easy enough to get along with. And the crew’s spirits were always lifted when the smells of cooking food could waft out through the ship.

It was also challenging work. Cooking in free fall was both absurdly complex and uniquely limited. Water had to be boiled in a sealed container, both because a typical stovetop would be useless and because a blob of boiling hot water was a real danger to everyone in the compartment. Additionally, food had to be carefully contained so that crumbs couldn’t go floating off and find someone’s eyes or lungs. The microgravity even affected the crew’s sense of taste: Without gravity, almost everyone on board felt as if they’d gained their equivalent to a head cold.

The entire menu for the trip had to be prepared such that each meal could be self-contained, wouldn’t break apart, and had flavor the crew could actually taste. Rather than a typical bread, the Cook had Old Bess and his other subordinates prepare a springy flatbread as a replacement. Sauces and soups were made thick and were packaged into squeeze bags rather than into a bottle or bowl. Even salt couldn’t remain in its familiar, granular form – instead, it and other spices were suspended in gels. However, packaged candies retained their shapes and remained a favorite of the entire crew – even if they had to be carefully rationed to last the trip.

Frankly, the only thing that wasn’t prepared fresh was meat, which typically came in the form of frozen chuck grown in the labs on Torus. Thankfully, that portion of the menu was regulated to only a small portion of the crew: The Vyrăis First Officer, the Viribus Warriors, the various Shett crewmen, and their single prisoner – none of whom seemed eager to complain.

Compared to the specialized tools and machines used for cooking in the kitchen, the rest of the ship seemed almost primitive. The crew slept in sleeping bags strapped to the walls, and the sanitation facilities were little more than a specialized vacuum cleaner. There were officers’ cabins, but they were little more than a closet with the same kind of sleeping bag and straps that the rest of the crew used.

She had no reason to go into the other sections of the ship, and she had no desire to do so. Brettn worked in the hangar with other technicians to maintain the ship’s complement of drones and missiles. And if Old Bess went in there to visit, all she would manage to do is get in the way.

Her real problem was the schedule, and that Brettn and Old Bess were on separate sleep shifts. She’d tried to explain the situation to the officer in charge, but she’d been dismissed. And when she’d tried to ask one of the other crewmembers if she could sleep next to them, they all became embarrassed. It wasn’t as if she’d offered them comfort; she just couldn’t fucking sleep on her own.

Old Bess hadn’t had a good night’s sleep for weeks now.

It felt like her nightmares had gotten worse, though she never remembered them. All that was left was the panic and fear and looming dread. She could logically tell herself that it was baseless, but the same logic could not dispel those feelings.

It was also the reason she’d finally gone to the one place she’d hoped to avoid for the entire trip: The Viribus’ cabin.

The Viribus frightened her to put it lightly. First impressions aside, they were each incredibly fearsome creatures with sharp teeth and disturbingly long claws. And free fall had not diminished their agility or fearsomeness. Their strange shoulders meant they could launch themselves and then catch themselves in what she could only call a sprint – as they’d demonstrated to deadly effect during the raid. Not that Old Bess needed further convincing of their martial prowess.

They weren’t really the ones she wanted to talk to, but the one she did want to talk to hadn’t left their cabin since the ship left Torus orbit. Besides Brettn, the Singer was the only one who’d ever just got it.

The Prison-Ship where Old Bess met Singer had been much worse than the Manifest Destiny was. She hadn’t been able to sleep there either, and she’d been too afraid to ask her cell-mates to help her. When the Singer, this strange and ugly alien, had been boarded with Old Bess, she’d done her best to avoid the Human. Old Bess hadn’t known what to think, but the Human’s strange forward-facing eyes had been all the reason she needed to be wary of the Singer’s attention.

That hadn’t really mattered to the Singer, though. Old Bess must have made some sort of noise in her sleep, something that wasn’t too uncommon on the prison-ship. Old Bess woke from a nightmare at the Singer’s gentle touch – one that both frightened and surprised her.

When Old Bess didn’t say anything, the Singer just … stroked Old Bess’s flanks in a soothing motion. The Singer made such a strange noise at Old Bess, one she later explained was called humming: like singing with your mouth closed, something Old Bess simply didn’t have the biology to imitate. It didn’t take long for Old Bess to tell the kind alien all about her nightmares, and to her surprise, the Singer understood.

The Human didn’t even hesitate to climb into Old Bess’s cot with her. The Singer’s long arms and legs wrapped so comfortingly around Old Bess, a strange but not unwelcome sensation. The Singer’s compassion had been Old Bess’s only solace on that damnable ship.

The Singer was the only person other than Brettn who Old Bess knew she could rely on. All Old Bess had to do to see the Singer was face down a deadly warrior from a savage, alien world that could tear her to shreds before she even realized she was dead.

One such warrior filled the narrow doorway into their cabin, six sets of claws longer than Old Bess’s feminine antlers clutched at the doorway. His four, unerringly focused eyes locked expectantly onto her as she gave a halting explanation of her intentions. His name was Kanen’eh, if she remembered correctly.

One of his many ears flicked in thought, the only indication he gave that he wasn’t some sort of fearsome statue. “How long have you gone without sleep?” he asked, punctuated by a strange whistly word.

“I think it’s been s-seven ship days,” Old Bess admitted.

Kanen’eh hummed in thought, and his eyes narrowed as he considered her. “I have heard of such daemons, though I didn’t think they haunted-“ once again, he said something in a flutey language that Old Bess had no chance of understanding. “Alien. People from other skies,” he said by explanation when he realized he’d switched languages on her. “What is it you think I can do? The General brought a doctor on the star-boat; why not go to him?”

“I did,” Old Bess admitted. “But he just gave me pills. They make me sleep, but … before and after …” she tried to explain.

“I understand,” Kanen’eh said, one of his clawed hands raised to halt her. “Potions and herbs do not dispel these daemons, but they may assist you until you gain the strength to tame them.” He paused, thoughtful. “I am honor-bound to assist you. For now, you need rest,” he sighed as he retreated into the cabin and motioned for her to follow.

Old Bess hesitantly pushed off and floated into the little cabin. It was as cramped inside as she’d expected, with several oversized sleeping bags strapped in to surround one other bag: the Singer’s.

Old Bess wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but the Human’s clammy skin and flushed face were not on the list. The Singer’s breathing was labored, and moisture beaded across her whole face – only wicked away when the Viribus wiped it from her face with a rag.

“I didn’t realize she was so …” Old Bess started, unsure how to describe the state in which she’d discovered the Human. She’d heard the rumors that the Singer was in a coma, but this didn’t look like a coma. “What’s wrong with her?”

“She is-“ Kanen’eh switched languages again, mid-sentence. “I’m sorry it is difficult to explain in your language. The Singer’s body is here, but her soul is elsewhere. The absence of her soul has left her vulnerable, and sickness has taken hold of her body,” he explained. He unzipped the sleeping bag, and in the enclosed space of the cabin, Old Bess felt a wave of warmth come off the Human. The Singer shivered in the open air. The loose clothing she wore clung to moist skin across her entire body.

“Why is she so warm? And why is she moist?” Old Bess asked hesitantly. She watched as the Viribus warrior checked a set of intrusive tubes and bags; she was surprised by how gentle Kanen’eh could be despite his massive claws.

“I do not know the name in your language. Her body grows warm, which the sickness cannot abide. But the body cannot abide such warmth for long either,” Kanen’eh explained as he tugged on the cohesive tape wrapped around one of the Singer’s arms. “As to the moisture, it is sweat.”

“But there’s so much,” Old Bess protested. She knew what sweat was; Ventusi could sweat as well – though only from around their joints, and even then only when they were very overheated. The Singer was absolutely drenched in sweat.

“A Human sweats from all their skin. They use it to regulate their temperature, but it means the Singer needs a lot of water,” he explained as he exchanged an empty bag with one filled with water. “You may sleep next to her so long as neither of you chews on the other while you sleep. During your next free period, come back, and we will discuss your training.”

“T-training?” Old Bess stammered as Kanen’eh gently nudged her into the sleeping bag with his tail.

“Yes,” he said as he closed the sleeping bag around them. “You won’t survive on Laetus with such a daemon haunting you. You must conquer it. I will help you.” Once she was secured beside the Singer, Kanen’eh turned away from her and began to climb into his own voluminous sleeping bag.

“But I only wanted-“

“I have spoken,” Kanen’eh yawned with finality. He closed his sleeping bag forcefully, and Old Bess realized she’d probably interrupted his sleep period with her bothering, so she halted her protests for another time.

It didn’t take long for her own day to catch up to her and lull her into sleep. The Singer was uncomfortably warm against Old Bess’s back, but it was far more comforting than the solitude of her own sleeping bag. Soon, a blissfully dreamless sleep overcame her.